


we'll always have paris

by ronsparkyspeirs



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:28:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2757869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronsparkyspeirs/pseuds/ronsparkyspeirs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>here's looking at you kid. Daryl tells Rick about Beth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll always have paris

They bury her right outside of Atlanta, in a meadow where flowers and trees grow, it looks like a goddamn fairy-tale and it only makes Daryl cry harder. Her grave sits under a huge oak tree and Maggie hasn’t stopped crying since she saw her baby sister in Daryl’s arms. Abraham, Rick, and himself dig her grave, but it’s him that lowers her into her resting place. Like the last time he carried her in their little dollhouse where he planned on staying with her, where she giggled and smiled when he didn’t let her walk the last five feet to the kitchen table. 

He pulls himself out of the grave with a sob and Tara lays a hand on his shoulder, “She would have liked it here,” she says softly and Daryl nods because Beth Greene, the girl made of hope and kindness would have widened her eyes and smiled when she saw this place. Gabriel says a few words but Daryl’s not listening because he’s thinking of the moonshine shack, of her grin when they burned the place down, I’ll be gone someday, she’d said and Daryl didn’t believe her. Stop, he’d responded because there was no way she was going before him, not when he was there to protect her, not when they were together and made each other better, stronger. 

You’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone Daryl Dixon, and he almost wants to hate her a little for saying that, because now that’s all he thinks about. Her pretty blonde hair coated in dark, dark blood, the way she seemed to weigh so much less the last time he carried her. He’d never hear her sing again, never see those eyes looking at him like he was a better man, like it didn’t matter where he came from and what he did before. He wants to lay down next to her and somehow wake her up, stroke her hair and kiss her cheek, something he should have done while he had the chance. He wants to take her in his arms and squeeze the life back into her, he wants her here next to him, holding his hand and laying her head on his shoulder. 

“Is there anything you’d like to say, Daryl?” Gabriel asks, but he’s still staring at her grave. She’ll always be there, till the end of time, swaddled in white linen with fresh flowers in her hair. They had washed the blood off her face and Maggie had wailed at the sight of her sister, she looked like she was sleeping and the memories must have come rushing in like a flood. 

“I-- I can’t--” he stutters, and he wishes he could. Wishes he could tell everyone just what this slip of a girl meant to him. He wishes he could tell Abraham, Rosita, Tara, and Eugene and Gabriel what a good woman she was, that he wanted her back so badly and now she’s gone.

This girl who burned his eyes sometimes when he looked at her because it was like she was made of sunshine. She was light and faith and how is he ever going to make these people understand? These strangers who will never listen to her sing or watch as she carries Judith on her hip, they didn’t get the chance to meet her and now they never will. 

Gabriel says one last prayer and everyone lays a single flower on her grave. Daryl feels like his legs might give out and maybe if it wasn’t for Carol and her firm hands on his shoulders he would have. But he also feels anger, this shouldn't have happened. It feels like white heat running through his veins, he starts shaking with it; he wants to go back in time and pull her away from Dawn, drag her away from the place even if she kicked and screamed. Instead he’s here, standing in front of her grave like some sick joke.

***************************************

Later as the group walks toward shelter he finds himself next to Rick, who keeps looking at him like he might check out any minute or like he’s some intruder wearing Daryl Dixon’s face. 

“You okay?” Rick asks and Daryl almost laughs because he’s really not. 

“Gotta be,” he responds, shrugging, because what can he say that’ll make this any better, what can he say about this girl, this woman who means so much to him, who pulled him from the brink of oblivion and offered him paradise in the palm of her hands. But he tries, the least he can do for her; the words spill out like vomit and Rick listens attentively. 

He tells him of the shack they lit on fire after getting drunk on moonshine and Rick smiles a little when Daryl describes a drunk Beth. He tells him of the first days spent in silence after the prison fell, how Beth never lost hope and somehow she always knew the rest of the group was still alive. 

A sob catches in his throat when starts talking about the funeral home, he has to clear his throat a couple of times before the words make their way from his lips. He tells him about the damn dog and how they were planning to stay there. 

“We were happy,” he says softly and Rick stops walking and turns to look at him, his blue eyes clear and hard. 

“Did you love her?” he rasps.

Daryl chews his lip and turns to look at the trees lining the road, he can still see her walking beside him; can still feel the weight of her in his arms as she giggled and smiled as he carried her to the kitchen table. 

And Rick nods because he knows. He just knows.


End file.
